The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

I picked up The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman partly because it won the Newbery Medal, and I have a goal to read all the winners of that award. I also chose it for the RIP IV Challenge.

This was my first Gaiman novel. Despite the fact that bloggers seem to have a special fondness for Gaiman, I just never felt inclined to give his books a read. I’m not a huge fan of fantasy (I’m not sure why) and I’m also less inclined to read something just because the crowd is reading it.

That said, I was amazed by this book. I sat and read the first 25 pages or so in the library after I picked it up, while my son played with the puzzles in the children’s area. It was engaging. So at about 9:30 or 10 p.m., I thought I’d read a little more to help me fall asleep.

I stayed up to finish it.

I never do that. My son awakes between 6 or 7 a.m. no matter what time I go to bed, so I’m usually eager to get my sleep. But there was something about The Graveyard Book that kept my attention. There’s something about the world and characters Gaiman creates that is familiar and fun. Although The Graveyard Book takes place (appropriately enough) in a graveyard and the main character is a boy raised by ghosts and the undead, it was familiar to me and yes, it was fun. How did Gaiman do that? I’m not sure. Continue reading »

Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

After reading Edgar Allan Poe last week, I thought I’d stay in the same era and read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s stories. To my delight, many of Hawthorne’s stories perfectly fit the “gothic” theme of Halloween in a style that I loved. Even though I dislike of being “scared,” these stories were again the perfect amount of creepy for me.

One of Hawthorne’s collections of stories is called Twice-Told Tales. As I read, I began to understand why: while many stories are on the surface about Puritans in the early days of America, they aren’t really about Puritans. Hawthorne is telling us a different story. Continue reading »

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving

Washington Irving’s ghost stories are just my type of ghost story: they’re tricky and creepy, but full of twists. Irving’s twists are rather predictable, but I found that Irving’s long-winded, wordy, early-1800s prose made his stories delightful to read. Continue reading »